Making Friends with Fiddly Fiorature
Over the past couple of weeks I have had a few requests for advice on how to handle the flurries of little notes we find in the music of Chopin.…
An Arpeggio Practice Plan
If you're preparing your scales and arpeggios for an exam, or if you want to include some as part of your warm-up routine or technical regime, it is a good…
Don’t Play!
We tend to think of sitting at the piano and practising totally in terms of making sounds. If we’re not moving our fingers up and down, we’re not really practising,…
Spring Cleaning a Repertoire Piece
Do you have a favourite piece you just love to play, but end up feeling disappointed that you're just not doing the piece (or yourself) justice each time you drag…
“Sorry, I haven’t done as much practice as I would like this week…”
How often we piano teachers hear this comment! "Sorry, I haven't done as much practice as I would like this week." It has to rank with the exclamation "But I…
But I Can Play It Perfectly Well At Home!
Of all the comments students make in lessons, the assertion that they can play it perfectly well at home has to be among the most common. I would guess that…
Snakes And Ladders
In life, we repeat certain ways of doing things until they become habits - until we become unconscious of them and do them without thinking (and without the need to…
Piano Graffiti
Recently I ordered a new item of furniture, and when it arrived the delivery man plonked his clipboard onto my piano and there began to do his paperwork. This gesture…
A Sound Investment
In a recent post, I suggested that performing (or playing through), can be compared to spending, whereas practising has its parallels with investing. Successful people in the business world will…